A lifestyle blog focused on being healthy and celebrating beauty at all sizes

The reality of weight loss: Sagging Skin

Almost a year ago, I decided to go through with a vertical sleeve gastrectomy, aka weight loss surgery, and I have lost 130 pounds almost. What most don’t see is that reality that comes with massive weight loss…sagging skin.

When I started this journey, I decided to make it public for a few reasons:

To hold myself accountable

To motivate and inspire others to be Healthy Not Skinny

To educate individuals on weight loss surgery and curtail the stigma that it is the “easy way out”

To promote body image positivity at all sizes

While I believe I have done a good job and remaining true to these four points, I realized I
was not telling the entire story. Social media posts like my post here are what I call “Perfection Posts.” It is the post you make after taking 100 photos from a different angle/lighting just to find the right picture after adding an awesome filter. It is the post where you show the before and after, but not the struggle during. When I make posts like these, I get crazy likes on social media. And it makes sense because they are extremely motivating. However, this post isn’t my complete reality. It is not my entire struggle during. So here it goes.

Hi, my name is Dionne and I have a great deal of wrinkly, sagging and excess skin due to my weight loss.

To those who know me closely, I do a great job of masking the sagging skin. I know how to work my body and cover what I do not want others to see. I am like Houdini except for weight loss. As you can see from some of the pictures noted in this post, I am carrying around POUNDS of excess skin on my breast, arms, thighs, abdomen and butt. While most of the areas look fine, my abdomen and breast are easily noticeable if not clothed in the right way. Despite my best efforts to tone and wear compression garments, the skin is here to stay.

It took me a long time before I even considered talking about my sagging skin openly. I spent hours debating whether to share my story for others to see, posting the first sagging picture online along with my weight for the world to see is hard. It is the bittersweet part of my weight loss that I am extremely uncomfortable with and proud of at the same time. This is what hard work and dedication looks like. But, this is also what brings rashes, pain and body discomfort to some. This is my reality.

I have started meeting with surgeons about removing my sagging skin on my breast and abdomen. While I believe the sagging skin is symbolic of the progress I have made this past year, I believe removing and lifting the skin will improve my standard of living.

I am raising funds to get the following procedure done: anchor breast lift with abdominoplasty (skin removal and a lift to the breast and abdomen).

With that said, I hope you will consider donating to my medical costs for the surgery as insurance will not pay for everything.

If interested, visit the link here to donate or email me at dgomez3488@gmail.com to make an offline donation.